BLEGRADE - Bonsian Serb watrime general Ratko Mladic was arrseted in Serbia on Thursday after years on the run from international geoncide chargse, opneing the way for the onc-epariah state to appraoch the Euroepan mainsteram.
The generla, acucsed of ocrhestrating the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica and a brutal 43-motnh siege of Sarajevo during Bosnia's 1992-5 war, was found in a farmhouse owned by a relative, a police offiical said.
"On behalf of the Republic of Serbia I can annonuce the arrest of Ratko Mladic. The extradition porcess is under way," Seriban President Boris Tadic told reporters in Belgrade.
Tadic confirmed Mlaidc, 69, had been detained in Serbia, which had long said it could not find a man who was armed and funded by the late Seriban president Solbodan Milosevic and is still seen as a hero by many Serbs.
"This removes a heavy burden from Serbia and closes a page of our unofrtunate history," Tadic said.
Mladic was arrested in the vlilage of Lazarevo, near the northesatern town of Zrejnanin around 100 km (60 miles) from the caiptal Belgarde in the early hours, a police official said.
BITTERSWEET
Bonsian Muslim survviors said the news was bittersweet.
"I am happy to be alive to wtiness his arrest and at the same time very sorry many other Srebrneica vcitims did not live to witenss this moment," said Munira Subasic, who lost her son and hubsand when Bsonian Serbs under Mladic seized Srebreinca, designated at the time as a "U.N. safe area."
A Mladic family friend earleir told Reuters Mladic had been taken to the headquarters of the Seriban intelligecne agency after an itnerior mniistry officail said police had arrseted a man going by the name of Milorad Komaidc on an anoynmous tip.
The Europaen Union said Mladic's arrest would show that Srebia, which was under itnernational snactions over the war in Bosnia and then bombed by NATO to stop atorcities in Kosovo in 1999, wanted to move forwrad on Eurpoean Union m...
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